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Wednesday, February 15, 2012

On Gay Marriage

So I follow all of the presidential candidates on Twitter and Rick Santorum posted a tweet the other day that read: "We need judges who respect the people's voice and our Constitution." Clearly this is in response to the court in California saying Proposition 8 is unconstitutional and essentially says that gays and lesbians are less than people. I tweeted back, because you know they read every single tweet that they receive: "Yep. Judges who uphold our Constitution and our Pursuit of Happiness. Happiness for ALL not just people who agree with you." I've long been an advocate that love and marriage is a guaranteed right given to us by the Founding Fathers when they wrote that every American has a right to "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness." Anyway, I forgot about the tweet until the next morning when I noticed that someone responded to it.

Sorry, We Hav Justices Legl. From Bench! NO NO in my book!

First of all, your book doesn't matter. Just like my book doesn't matter. Just like Rick Santorum's book doesn't matter. Second of all, that's kind of the purpose of the courts and something the Founding Fathers decided so the President and Congress doesn't have all the power. That's why there are three branches of government. That's something you should've learned while watching Schoolhouse Rock on Saturday Mornings.

I decided to look further into this and, since I knew we were all talking about Prop 8 and those awful homosexuals falling in love, I decided to just focus on that. Prop 8 originally went to the California Supreme Court in 2008 and the court "ruled in a 4–3 decision that laws directed at gays and lesbians are subject to strict judicial scrutiny and that marriage is a fundamental right under Article 1, Section 7 of the California Constitution." In fact, in 1967, the U.S. Supreme Court heard a case (Loving v. Virginia) which also declared that "Marriage is one of the "basic civil rights of man," fundamental to our very existence and survival" and this was in response to states making interracial marriage illegal.

I took a closer look at the guy's tweet and focused on the legislating part. The California Supreme Court ruled Prop 8 unconstitutional, the Northern California District Court ruled Prop 8 was unconstitutional and, just a week ago, the 9th Circuit Appeals Court upheld that decision. From my research, the U.S. Supreme Court has placed restrictions on federal courts barring them from basically interpreting the Constitution and that their only function is to uphold state court rulings. The 9th Circuit did expressly that. They, a federal court, upheld what the California Supreme Court, a state court, ruled. That Proposition 8 is unconstitutional. The next step, undoubtedly, is the U.S. Supreme Court.

My whole problem with this hatred of gay people is, what does it matter to you? Two guys getting married is not a threat to your marriage or your beliefs. I hear people complain all the time that America is going to Hell. And this is from people who choose God over everything else. Why is the entire country going to Hell? I thought God was supposed to be all-knowing and all-seeing. If God does not like homosexuality, doesn't he know who is for it and against it and can punish accordingly?